Crisis of a Disintegrating Order

Crisis and revolution in Philippine society

The succession of the Aquino and Ramos regimes to the Marcos regime has given the country no relief from the political and economic crisis and has only increased the crushing weight of suffering and hardship on the people. The economy lies prostrate, completely under the dictation of the US-controlled IMF-WB and foreign banks and with no hope of recovery. The country sinks ever deeper into the debt quagmire. Its productive wealth is being siphoned off through enormous debt service payments and the unrestricted capital repatriation of multinational companies. The deficits in the balance-of-trade and government budget are unequaled in history. Double digit inflation has ravaged the lives of the people. Impoverishment and unemployment are cutting a wide swath, throwing bigger sections of the middle social strata into the state of destitution which is the daily lot of the masses of workers, peasants and all urban and rural poor.

The deepening of the Philippine crisis and the new dimensions it has assumed have made revolutionary struggle and radical social transformation all the more imperative and has created exceedingly favorable conditions for waging the national democratic revolution. The unjust and oppressive rule of US imperialism and the big comprador-landlord class is being weakened by the internecine conflicts of the reactionary forces and by the persevering and sustained revolutionary struggles of the Filipino people.

The house of the ruling classes is in disarray, wracked by internal strife among rival reactionary factions within and outside the deeply divided military. There is no faction— whether political, military or a combination of both—strong enough to wield a consensus and govern effectively. This crisis of governance has resulted in a steady erosion of the strength of the neocolonial state apparatus and varying degrees of paralysis in its different parts.Increasing factionalism and rampant corruption, especially at the highest levels, are rapidly demoralizing the rank-and-file and the officers’ corps of the armed forces. The deterioration of the “professional army” is such that whole commands and ranking officers have become involved in big-time criminal syndicates and activities.

US imperialism finds it more and more difficult to realize its counter-revolutionary agenda in Philippine society. Its own global economic power has constricted its own ground by throwing neocolonies to penury and indebtedness. The US is being weakened by deficits due to overconsumption and by military overspending and adventures in other parts of the world. Within the Asia- Pacific region, US and Japanese monopoly capitalism are still collaborating in exploiting the people. But they are also competing against each other.

Within the country, a broad national awakening is agitating the broad masses of the people, especially the workers and peasants, to take the road of armed revolution. Even the middle social strata are increasingly critical of and opposed to the dominance of the US and its retinue of big compradors and landlords.